


22) The last note takes you home

by Munnin



Series: Hugin Chronicles [22]
Category: Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 20:06:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11585265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Munnin/pseuds/Munnin
Summary: Tahl and the Rus sisters go home to Silvestri VII, ready to settle back into their lives. But the ramifications of Order 66 changes the face of the galaxy, forever.





	22) The last note takes you home

**Author's Note:**

> Red Mist Squad based on characters created by Joe Hogan for the [ The Siren of Dathomir](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3z0kyf53Ds) and [ Panic Over Muunilinst ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3-_EnhMEDE). Stolen, run away with, and abused with his permission.
> 
> The Grey Jedi and Odd Squads are original characters based on members of the CSWCC. The original Argument’s End series can be found [here](http://munnin.dreamwidth.org/tag/grey+jedi+verse).

Coming home was… odd. It had been over a month since their world had turned upside down, longer if they counted from Malastare, from their first encounter with the Red Mist. The moment they became entangled in galactic politics. But it had been a little less than a month since they’d left their home on Silvestri VII.

The strangest thing was how much things had changed. And how much they hadn’t. 

There were signs that time had moved on in the little port city – businesses that had changed hands, shops opened or closed. A mix of familiar and strange faces at the spaceport. The scars of the fire were clearly visible as Sera piloted them down – great rents of bushland blackened and skeletal, showing the once invisible shape of the land beneath the dense bushland. However, the vector she flew them in on didn’t cross over the falls. Tahl couldn’t decide if he glad or disappointed by that. There was something unfinished, unresolved in his heart and it felt connected to that place.

But there they were, walking up the street towards the shop.

Sera had offered to stay, offered to help, but this was something they had to do alone. There was no knowing how close the fire had come, if the shop would even still be there. But they would handle that on their own terms. It was time to start this new phase of their lives. Together. 

The shop, their home, was thankfully intact, even if the fireline could be seen from the upper floor balcony. Eva had barely had time to lock up before the troopers had turned up and even then, there were ways into the shop she hadn’t had time to bar. But no-one had robbed them. In fact, the shop had been very carefully boarded up and there were signs someone had stopped by more than once. Just to check things.

It only affirmed their decision to stay, and not to let Sera relocate them to another world. Silvestri VII was home. Their community.

Eva let them in the back door, the air inside smoky and stale. “Well. We start there.” She ordered, hands on hips. “Let’s get everything open and aired out.”

Tahl was glad of the work – opening up the shop and apartment, removing hoardings and bars, cleaning out the kitchen where forgotten food had spoilt. It was simple, easy manual work that gave him time to think. And to get use to the arm. 

He’d had weeks of physical therapy with Lark but it didn’t feel any more a part of himself than it had when they first fitted it on him. And the translator in the cuff still squawked oddly, never quite getting the volume or tone right. In the end, he had turned it off, preferring to sign with Eva and Rebec. He didn’t remember the sound of his own voice; that belonged to the time before. It belonged to Hugin. No doubt he sounded much like the other clones had. But that wasn’t his voice. Nor was what come out of the cuff. It would have its uses, but not here, not now. 

The arm was strong at least. It helped while he was clearing away fallen branches from the garden around their home. The native trees had shed heavy boughs as a reaction to the heat, some leaving gouged in the side of the building as they fell. He’d have to replace those panels, he thoughts as he clamped the durasteel hand around the branches and dragged them away. Another enjoyably simple task. And contribution to his home. Their home. 

That night they sat on the sloping roof, sharing fried fish and pod-poppers from a paper wrapper. There had been visitors all day as people noticed movement at the shop. Checking in on them, eager for news and glad to see them alive. Rumours had been rife as to what had become of them. 

Eva had set the bones of the story and they all stuck to it – Tahl had been mistaken for some renegade clone on Malastare. Because of that visor he’d made out of the damaged helmet Eva had picked up on trade. “I mean, does he even look like a clone?” 

It didn’t hurt that very few people on Silvestri VII had ever seen a Republic Trooper without his helmet. 

Everything had gotten so blown out of proportion from there. Or so their version of the story went. Both the clone army and the Separatist had come looking for that renegade clone and they’d gotten caught in the cross-fire. Tahl had gone up to the old hides for safely but the Separatists had set fire to the bush to smoke him out. The Republic soldiers found him and air-lifted him out. But not before Tahl was forced over Canyon Falls by the fire and lost his arm. 

That hadn’t been the original version of the story they intended to tell but it was clear from their first couple of visitors that people already blamed the Separatist for the fire. It was easier to just run with it. And everyone knew how dangerous the falls were. Once or twice a year, someone was drunk enough or dumb enough, or just plain suicidal enough to play around at the top of the falls. The bottom two pools were perfectly safe and a favourite spot for children to play. But the top of the falls were fatal. 

Tahl didn’t enjoy the attention it brought to his lost arm. People tended to stare enough at the mild scarring to his face and head where the laser burns had removed his skin paint. That at least would heal smooth in a few months and could be written off as part of his injuries from the fire. But people staring at his metallic arm made it feel even less like a part of him. Like some freakish add-on. 

Only Rebec made him feel comfortable about it. She simply ignored it. As if it was part of him and always had been. As if nothing had changed. She leant into his side as they sat and ate, watching the stars come out as the port city behind them slowly lit up for the night. 

They were home. They were family. And they had the rest of their lives to enjoy that. 

Rebec looked up and smiled as the two little kittens picked their way across the roof towards them, attracted by the smell of the fish. “Greedy little things. You’ve already been fed.” She picked up the one Wrathor had named Tinkii and sat it in her lap as the other, Nips, climbed up the back of Tahl’s jacket to perch on his shoulder, grooming the hair just over his ear.

“What are we going to do with them?” Eva asked, bemused by the kittens and their antics. “You know they’re going to grow up too massive to keep in the house, right?”

“They have a lot of growing to do yet.” Rebec answered, almost pleadingly. “It’ll be years and years before they’re too big.”

Tahl shifted his weight so they could see him sign in the fading light, hesitant to break the calm with that erratic machine voice. *The Darrugn use to train them? Isn’t that how the stories go? Maybe we could ask them*

Eva nodded slowly. The native Darrugn people of Silvestri VII lived in relative harmony with the port city, most of them keeping to their traditional ways far to the west, beyond the dividing mountains. Large groups of tall, slender nomads came to the port in the Spring and Autumn to trade, their rippled grey skin and long limbs making them almost invisible between the trees until they stepped out onto the roads. Eva had a good relationship with several artisan families whose elaborate carvings were popular with core world collectors. The sign language they used to communicate with the mostly human port population was considered Silvestri VII’s main language. The language Tahl spoke. 

“You’d have to find Yellomundi, the storyteller. She’d know if anyone does. I shouldn’t imagine they’re more than a few weeks away, if the fire hasn’t slowed them down.”

Tahl nodded. *I want to go back to Canyon falls. Once everything is set up here. I need-*

Rebec reached out to stop his hands, hushing him gently. “It’s alright. You don’t need to explain. We understand.” She hugged him tightly, careful not to dislodge the kittens. 

“Maybe you should take them with you?” Eva suggested as Tinkii investigated the empty fish wrapper in hope of more. “It would be a good idea to get them use to the bush as well.

Tahl returned the hug, nodding. They understood, perhaps better than he did. Which meant the world to him.

He was home. And even if there was still an unsettled feeling in his core he needed to deal with, he was safe, and had time. 

At least he thought it did. 

The news came only a few days after they settled back into their lives, flashing across every holo-vid in the port. 

The first Tahl and Rebec heard was when Eva came back from town, her shopping abandoned in her rush to get back. They’d been outside all day, sitting under the big trees as Rebec outlined the new design for Tahl’s back.

They listened to Eva’s report with mounting horror. 

The Jedi were in open revolt.  
The Jedi had tried to kill the Chancellor.  
The Chancellor had survived but had declared himself supreme ruler.  
The Clone Troopers had been ordered hunting down the Jedi.  
They obeyed the Chancellor and only him.  
The temple on Coruscant was burning.  
The Republic was dead.  
The Empire was rising.

“Sera? D’rue?” Rebec covered her mouth. “The Odds, they wouldn’t turn on them? Surely! They were all friends. And Red Mist? What about them?” Tears of panic and worry pricked her eyes. 

*I don’t know.* Tahl signed, his mind reeling.

“But they wouldn’t- would they?” Rebec pleaded. “They’re not like that!”

*I DON’T KNOW.* Tahl pulled away, his emphatic response betraying his own worry.

“People are turning against the clones.” Eva activated her datapad, scanning the news sites as well as the local forums. “There are riots on Eufornis Major, Alderaan, and Ganthel. Clones are firing on civilians.” She turned to look at Tahl, her voice sharp. “You have to leave. Until we know more, you need to get to safely.”

“Eva, you don’t think-” Rebec looked from her sister to Tahl. “Tahl would never hurt us- he’s not one of them. Not anymore.”

*We don’t know that.* Tahl signed, already reaching for a bag. *We don’t know for sure. Eva is right.*

Eva started packing supplies, packaging up food and water purifiers. “Go to the falls. Take the cats. You’ll be safe in the caves below the Cauldron till we know more. No-one will think to look for you there.” 

Rebec clung to Tahl’s arm, as if trying to stop him but he shook her off, looking into her eyes. *I have to go. Until we know it’s safe, I have to go. I’ll try to reach Red Mist. Try to get answers. I’m not a trooper but I am a clone. I need to keep you safe.* He pulled her into a hug and held her for a long moment. *I love you, Rebec.*

Then he gently but firmly pushed her into Eva’s arms, took the bag and whistled for the kittens. 

Night was falling as he reached the top of Canyon Falls, Tinkii and Nips asleep in the pockets of his jacket. He parked the speeder and hid it in the brush of fallen branches left by the fire. With the light failing, there was no safe way to climb down to the caves so he made a nest next to the speeder, taking off his jacket and tucking the kittens safely under the bike.

He went through the motions of building a temporary camp – scouting cover, clearing space, building a screen to keep his little fire from view. Anything to keep him from thinking too hard.

But he couldn’t help it. He hated leaving Rebec like that but he knew it was the right thing to do. He didn’t remember being a trooper but he knew he could kill. He felt it deep inside. Fordo had known it too. The Captain’s comment about the fire that burned in them felt ominous now. Something that could flare up and destroy, just as the bushfire here had. And if that fire was at someone else’s command-

It didn’t bear thinking about. He had a home. He had a family. How fast could all of that be destroyed? And so soon after he got it all back.

And his brothers? Where were they? Were they safe, or had they killed on the Emperor’s orders. He didn’t want to believe it. Didn’t want to believe they would so blindly turn on the commanders they had grown to like and trust. Granted there had been no love lost between Fordo and D’rue, but he had heard some of the squad mention other Jedi with respect and admiration. Surely-

He cut off that line of thinking and forced himself to focus. The kittens and himself fed, he settled down to re-wire and re-activate the beacon in his visor. In the faint but distant hope he could reach Red Mist, get word from his brothers so he could return to his sisters.

When he’d done all he could, he sat holding the little disc between his fingers, the image activated. 

A holo of the Red Mist squad in their phase two armour, helmets off and grinning at the recorder. 

His brothers. The other half of who he was. He fell asleep looking at them. Hoping for them. Waiting for them.

It wasn’t till the fifth day, over the growls of the playful kittens and the thunder of the falls, Tahl turned towards sound of a familiar engine. He stood on the edge of the cliff, faced the rising sun and waited.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the last chapter in the Hugin Chronicles as it stands. The story may pick up again after Panic Over Muunilinst is released, or after the third chapter. Ask Joe. He alone knows.


End file.
